Penny Pinching Mom

Don’t Go Crazy With Your Tax Refund

Many of you who get a refund have probably already filed your taxes. Quite a few may have even gotten their refunds back already. I am expecting mine at the end of the week. I would have filed sooner, but I had to wait on a 1099 to get here.

If you can take the earned income credit, you can get a nice chunk of change at tax time. I didn’t get to take it last year, and it was quite a letdown. But this year I was able to, so I’m practically dancing in anticipation.

It can be tempting to go crazy with all of that “extra” cash. But wouldn’t it be much better to put it into savings, or use it to pay down some debt? I had planned on putting a substantial amount of it toward either my or Hubby’s truck loan, but they way things are looking we would be better off to put it in savings so we’ll have something to fall back on during lean months.

Don’t get me wrong- I do have a list of things we need to get with the money. I’ll even admit that there are a couple of intense “wants” on that list as well. But I’m going to do some heavy-duty figuring before we spend a penny of it on anything but immediate bills. Having everything down on paper in advance is a good way to put it in perspective and keep impulses at bay.

I have considered getting advance income credit payments. For those of you who don’t know, there is a form you can fill out and turn in to your employer, and you’ll get so much a month instead of getting the lump sum at tax time. Our finances have been in somewhat of a roller-coaster state for the past year, so I decided against it. But if you usually get the EIC and aren’t anticipating any big changes, getting it in payments can be a big help with the bills.

If you haven’t filed your taxes yet, be sure to take a look at my post about online tax preparation. You’ll find ways to save yourself some money.

Save on All Your Printing Needs

Do you ever need anything professionally printed? Business cards, brochures, address labels, greeting cards? If it can be printed, you can find it at VistaPrint. And they have the best prices around. You can get 50% Off All Note Cards, Announcements & Invitations
by shopping with them.

If you’re looking for something for nothing you can find that at VistaPrint as well. For the price of shipping and handling, you can get FREE Personalized Note Pads
.
They also have free offers on business cards, rubber stamps, and logo design. Or if you just want to see firsthand what they have to offer, you can get a free sample pack with samples of ten of their most popular products.

VistaPrint can save you money on anything that you need printed. They frequently have sales, so if they don’t have the price you want on the item you’re looking for, check back in a week or two.

Free Samples

Free samples are awesome! It’s great getting to try something out for free, because you can see if you like it before you shell out the bucks to buy.

I’ve been slacking on my sample-mongering for a while now, but one of my favorite places to find free samples is StartSampling.com. They have some great samples to choose from, and they also have contests and surveys you can participate in. You can even provide feedback on the samples you receive.

One of the things I really don’t like are the third-party offers they try to get you to sign up for, but you can always just pass them by. And their reward points program isn’t very good. But if you’re looking for free samples, look there. You’ll find some good ones.

Some other good places to find freebies:
• The Free Site
• WeeklyFreebie.com
• All Free Samples
• Freaky Freddies

A word of caution: Beware of sites that promise free stuff in exchange for completing “offers”. Most of the time the offer you have to complete will cost you money. At the very least, they will want to send you emails. If you do give them an email address, use one that you don’t mind receiving spam at.